


One Purpose

by versus_versus



Series: Long Live the Children of War [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Ace rey, Mother-Son Relationship, OT3, Stormpilot, all aboard the Leia-gets-shit-done train, and I see rey as being part of that OT3 but not interested in the sex, is best Leia, jedistormpilot, look I see Finn and Poe pursuing a more physical relationship, mom Leia, seriously this is nothing but pain, this fucked me up while writing it but now it's off my chest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-13 04:12:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5694268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/versus_versus/pseuds/versus_versus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nobody would ever say General Leia Organa was weak. When Luke and Rey went after Snoke, they left behind a woman with one purpose: to bring her son home.</p><p>A confrontation between mother and son. Expect pain. Lots of pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Since the movie didn't give us full Jedi-knight Leia, I've taken the liberty of assuming she has a fair amount of training, but clashed with Luke on some of the ideals of the Jedi order. So she's not a member of the Jedi order.
> 
> Long story short, I cranked this out because I needed to get some feels off my chest. Please don't kill me.

Nobody would ever say General Leia Organa was weak.

When Luke and Rey went after Snoke, they left behind a woman with one purpose: to bring her son home.

* * *

The landing bay was massive and though almost all of the ships were gone, it wasn’t abandoned. Not quite. She could feel him nearby, and she quickly checked her blaster and the saber holstered at her side. 

Weapons were rather a secondary thing, in her mind. She was rather out of practice with a lightsaber. It wasn’t politically appropriate to carry to negotiations, and it was impractical to carry in a firefight. Still, the blade in her hand had an uncomfortable familiarity from years before, and perhaps a modicum of genetic memory. The Force was more reliable, never far away and never disused enough for her to fall out of practice. It had been decades since she’d first felt the shift in the Force that a force-choke required. She’d felt it in Vader’s presence, the subtle shift of flesh crushing itself, and once she understood the Force more thoroughly it just clicked. Use of the force to levitate and move things came more naturally, but she’d hardly ever used it in combat. 

The sight of him was surreal. He was like a shadow, stalking angrily across the bay, closing the distance between them. He was taller than she’d thought he would be, with broad shoulders and an aggressive walk she couldn’t place. 

She knew her emotions sent ripples through the Force, and he paused. Stopped. He turned around and she knew, she just knew, that this was the end.

Even across the bay, he could feel the weight of her emotions. He honed in on them, pinpointing the turmoil and heading in her direction.

* * *

She could feel him. There was no need for her to hunt. He was coming to her.

There was a strange sense of destiny about it, simply waiting for him to come back to her. She’d searched for him over the years, but he’d blocked her every time she drew near. She’d eventually given up hunting for him through the Force, and placed her faith in Han to bring him home.

The surge of loss she felt was still raw, even moreso with their son’s approach. She could see him striding across the bay, and from a distance he held a disconcerting likeness to his grandfather. As he drew closer, she took deep breaths, gathering her strength and trying to prepare herself for the confrontation to come.

* * *

She looked smaller than the last time he’d seen her. Older, too, but not diminished. He looked at her through the darkened glass and felt the whisper in the Force. _Take off the helm._

He’d taken it off the last time he’d seen his father. There was a certain symmetry to it.

* * *

She stood her ground, bracing herself as he unfastened the helm and pulled it away, tucking it under his left arm. As much as she thought she’d prepared herself, there was no real way of preparing to see your only child. He’d been little more than a child the last time she’d seen his face, and suddenly the world was falling down around her.

His face was so much older, thinner. She’d seen him in her dreams, tried to pull him back to the light, but since he’d fallen he’d stood in shadow, running away from her as she pursued him through mottled darkness and light. The few times she caught him, reached for his hand, he whispered away like a ghost in the force.

He’d grown into a man, the lines of his face echoing a bit of Han, a bit of her, but mostly an older version of the boy she’d raised. His eyes were the same, dark, serious, and fierce. The gash…she didn’t want to think about the pain it must have caused. From the look of it, he’d refused treatment for it…or perhaps he’d been denied treatment. She pushed the thought away. It was hard to look at him and not see the child she’d loved for decades. She stifled the prickles that seemed to well up, pushing the sorrow down. If she started crying, she wouldn’t stop.

The look on his face flickered once as her expression changed. She could feel the shift in the Force, the way he was unable to keep the splinter of hope from exposing him.

“Is this how you looked at your father?” The words shook, but she threw them into the air between them like a challenge. She hesitated. Hope? Hope for what?

“No.” Silence stretched. “I’d hoped he’d see me for what I am now, and not for what he thought I was. It didn’t work.”

And he was hoping she would see him as the monster Han had denied. Kylo Ren. Not likely. She let out the breath she’d been holding and steeled herself again. “I felt him die, you know.”

“I knew you could.” To her surprise, she could feel remorse.

“And I felt you, as much as you tried to repress it. Your pain is loud.”

His hand hovered by his lightsaber, uncertain. “Then there’s no use in me denying it. But I didn’t want to do it, if that assuages a guilty conscience. You never should have sent him after me.”

The silence stretched on, like empty space. The air between them was full of things unsaid, fourteen years of things unsaid. She finally broke the silence. “I’m not going to ask you why. I know why. But if I call you Ben, what…”

“I’m not him anymore.” His words were harsh, but not quite angry. Hopeless.

“You're a liar. You’re not the son I remember, but you can’t change who you are. Who you were has changed. You’re still Ben Solo, but now you're a murderer many times over and there's no escaping what you've done.” She sighed. “It’s almost just as well you changed your name, your uncle thought you were undeserving of it.”

His eyes widened with shock, and for a moment she could see the child he’d been, the surprised expression he wore when he was unable to avoid a verbal thrashing for something he’d done. His mouth ticked up, the barest hint of a smile. “I should have known you would have seen straight through me.”

“Always could. In retrospect, that’s why I never should have let you out of my sight.”

He shrugged, relaxing his stance and putting his hands on his hips. The lightsaber hung at his side, untouched. “I grew up. You couldn’t have controlled me.”

“I didn’t need to control you, control is obviously a shit method of teaching you.” His eyebrows rose and she shook her head. “Oh please. You’re not a child anymore and I’m not here to debate with you. I’m here to figure out where I went wrong.”

“Would you like a nice cup of caff and a chat?” his dry sarcasm had a bit of a snarl around the edges. “I’m sure we have all the time in the world.”

“Think about it. You know why I’m really here. If you want to fight, we can, but I’d rather talk.”

He hesitated, then closed his eyes and felt about in the empty space of the Force for a clue. Leia knew what to expect and had felt it in the back of her mind, but he found it more quickly than she thought he would. The conflict on the other side of the planet sparked and popped like distant emergency flares. His eyes opened and his eyebrows rose, an expression she recognized as one of her own. It stung. “Hm. A distraction. Clever.”

“Your choice. We can keep fighting, or we can talk and you can put your own damnation off awhile. Besides, you know that Snoke’s methods are, at their core, the same as your uncle’s.”

Ben, because she could see straight through the front that was Kylo Ren and it was definitely Ben by now, snorted. “Everyone wants control.”

“Which is why I said I could have helped guide you, but I couldn’t have controlled you. Your uncle was always a bit too…idealistic. Believe me, I remember his training methods.”

“If you’re here to lecture me about what I deserved, it won’t change anything.”

Her casual demeanor vanished. “If we’re talking about what you deserve, you should be dead. You’d be dead for the children you killed, those that looked up to you, the people you’ve killed with the First Order and the deaths you’ve caused through your command,” Leia snapped like a spring wound too tight. “You don’t deserve anything but death, and if you were lucky it’d be quick.”

Her words sent him reeling. All the times she’d reached out to him through the Force, he’d felt mercy and love. This, though, this was pure, unadulterated anger like he’d never felt from her. From anyone.

A choked laugh left him, whooshing out of his lungs like he’d been slugged. “Really? I never expected this from you, of all people. Not quite as good as you always pretended to be, are you?”

“Good? You think I’ve had an easy time? You’ve never known life and loss the way I have.”

“I’ve got a decent idea,” he said, kicking the floor.

The punch of her anger that flared through the Force was like nothing he’d ever felt, something deep and raw and old. It knocked him back, and as he caught himself, the helm dropped to the floor with a ringing thump. “You think you’re the only one that’s ever been tempted to the dark side? Like your uncle wasn’t? Like I haven’t been? You’ve lived a pretty easy life, what could your rage possibly be based in?”

“You and dad left me!” In the blink of an eye, he lunged forward, his hand reaching for his saber on instinct. To his surprise, she reacted just as fast, force-locking him, his fingers only inches from his saber. He strained against his bonds, his voice cracking as it rose to edge on a scream. “I lost the people I cared about!”

“And you think your pain is somehow greater than everyone else’s?!” Her voice rose to a new level, matching the strain and snap of the Force in her as it caught him by surprise, shoving him back into the wall. She took a deep breath, attempting to calm herself. “We were all still alive. We were waiting for you to come home. You left us, you destroyed everything your uncle worked for. You hardly know loss.”

“You were the ones that left me.” His voice cracked with emotion, years of anger and resentment spilling out.

“You were a child. We left you to protect you, to let Luke train you until you were strong enough to keep yourself safe.” Her voice was solid, without room for question.

The shriek of anger running in his blood quieted as he stared his mother down. She was smaller than he remembered, or perhaps he was taller. Despite her size, her grip on the Force kept him pinned, unable to move.

“Listen to me. I never wanted you to understand the kind of suffering that leads to the dark side because I never wanted you to walk that path. I never wanted you to have a reason, so I sent you away from me to keep you safe. And in doing so, I put you on the path you took, the one that led to this mess.” 

“I can feel the words you didn’t use. A fall. You don’t want to say I ‘fell’ from the light,” he said bitterly.

“You fell alright, but not at the beginning. You had a chance, and I should have dragged you back to the light when you were young.” Her lips pursed and she closed her eyes for a moment. “You’ve been trapped between the light and the dark for years, and I’ve felt it, but you’ve blocked me each time I’ve tried to show you. Perhaps I should have shown you when you were little, maybe that would have changed everything.”

She lifted her hand to him and fear like he hadn’t felt in years stabbed through him. Someone looking on them would have found it almost comical. He was tall, looming over most people in the Order, and between his helm and dark robes, he cut a striking image. Even without the helm, the scar that bisected his face was enough to frighten people. She, on the other hand, was tiny, just over five feet tall, with an almost unassuming presence. Yet looking into her eyes, he saw a determination he’d never seen before, and his stomach twisted in fear.

As tiny as she was, she was the one he’d been afraid of. His father had always been a legend, someone to be reckoned with, but more of a story than anything else. General Leia Organa, though, was terrifyingly real. Everything she’d ever done, it was real. She’d helped bring a very temporary peace to the galaxy, a feat in and of itself. She’d fought, escaped, directed, and led in the name of diplomacy in the galaxy, and suddenly the reality of his mother came crashing down on him.

All of those meetings she’d taken him to when he was tiny, a mere memory in the back of his mind’s eye now, were a variety of diplomatic meetings and negotiations. The times he’d been sent out with his father and Chewie, when she’d been on ‘diplomatic’ missions, none of them had been what he’d thought.

The woman in front of him was terrifying.

And she was his mother.

“I’m sorry, but you need to understand.”

* * *

_There was pain. So much pain. Torture of the likes he’d felt before, but when he opened his eyes it wasn’t Snoke inflicting it, but Darth Vader. His grandfather, the man he’d looked up to for decades, was to blame. The helm, in perfect condition, was impossible to read. Pain screamed through him, and he tried to scream at the man in front of him, but he couldn’t push words into the sound._

_He watched as a planet was destroyed, the horror and pain of loss ripping through his chest like tectonic plates jolting along each other. He knew people there, he knew so many people there. It was…his home planet, it had to be. Everything he knew and loved, destroyed in the blink of an eye. His family, dead, murdered. The loss was crushing, and he felt that the weight on his chest was pressing through his ribs, shattering the world and spearing him on the splinters._

_The loss of the planet was still fresh, the pain still raw like a missing limb, when the next scene became clear. Han. He could see him, young and afraid, and he could feel the fear in him, the pain from the torture. His father was lowered into a terrifying mechanism and raised back out encased in a block of carbonite, barely alive. He knew his father would survive, he’d heard the story time and time again as a child, but the loss and despair he felt nearly overwhelmed him._

_Then there was more pain and something he recognized the bitter sting of: humiliation. He could see the faces of the people laughing at him, staring at him. He could see the giant Hutt that oogled him and occasionally groped him, and mortification gripped him._

_Through it all, Vader’s shadow loomed over everything, no longer a figure to be admired, but a nightmare encased in an unreadable helm._

_And then, when it seemed like it was all over, after he felt Vader’s life gutter out and somehow, there was the possibility of real life again and peace, then he found out that his father, his real father, was the monster that had caused so much of his pain and so much pain around the galaxy._

_Guilt washed over him then, swamping him, drowning him. He gasped for air at the revelation and tried to scream, but his lungs failed him. The guilt seemed to go on and on, never lessening and never abating, although eventually it fell to the back of his mind as fresh pain gripped him._

_This pain, he recognized. Betrayal, guilt, loss. So much loss, it felt like something had pried his chest open and ripped out his organs. It was only when he saw his own face on a holoscreen, young, barely fifteen, that he realized what he was feeling._

_He was feeling it all through her. Her pain was his pain, her memories were his memories._

_He recognized the boy’s fears and tried to reach out to him, but there was nothing he could do. He watched the scene play out on the holoscreen, as fresh as the day he’d done it. The deaths hit him fresh, this time through the eyes of a parent. Leia felt the loss of each padawan learner acutely, tiny sparks of light in the Force snuffed out one by one._

_The despair that struck him down was crippling, but he somehow found his feet and stared himself in the face. He stared down each of his actions through her eyes, from the rumors of raids to the hell he’d put the fighter pilot through, Leia felt it all as though she were there._

_When Starkiller base was finally activated, it brought all the pain of Alderaan’s loss back, and fresh despair. The government she’d worked to build, to restore some semblance of a Republic to the galaxy, was annihilated in minutes. Decades of work, billions of lives, gone._

_And then, sheer blinding loss. Pain. Screams echoing through the Force, screams he recognized from the inside of his own head. She had been right, his pain was loud._

_And hers was quiet._

_The pain of the last loss was blinding._

* * *

She released him from the force-lock and he crumpled with her pain, dry-heaving. It was a mercy he hadn’t eaten in days, the anxiety of this encounter looming over him. Tears streamed down his face, unbidden and unwanted. 

Reality. Reality was the bay floor under his knees, the desire for it all to end. He retched again and spat bile.

“How did you bear it?” He looked up at her, disbelieving. The pain and loss that had tempted him to the dark side felt miniscule in comparison. “How did you resist the dark side?”

She was quiet for a minute and he knew the answer before she spoke. “I didn’t. Not entirely.”

 _Impossible._ He looked up at her, for the first time seeing General Leia Organa, a Skywalker and a Solo by marriage, as a flawed but complete person. 

“How?” he repeated.

“That was part of why your uncle and I clashed so much. I believe in democracy and peace. And sometimes my anger got the better of me, and the dark side crept in. But I have never, and will never, bend to the Sith.” She looked down on him and held out a hand. “So this is your last chance. There’s no redeeming you from what you’ve done, there’s no coming back from that. But there’s darkness in all of us, the same as the light, and you can still stop this. The Sith, the Knights of Ren, even the Jedi, they’re flawed, you know it as well as I do. But the Force is beyond all of those things, and you can still turn back to the light.”

The weak laugh that bubbled its way out of him was a measure of emotion that he didn’t want to express. Still, at that point he would laugh or he would cry, and there were few other options. “Snoke is too strong.”

“You don’t have to serve the Order. Let me help you.”

“I’m beyond help.” He tried to find his feet, but the world seemed to shake around him.

Her face crumpled for a moment, and he felt her pain, fresh and raw. “Let me try.”

"There's nothing to go back to, even if I went turncoat on them." He felt like he was choking on his own lungs. “You'd have to put me on trial. We both know there’s only one way to end this.”

“Don’t talk like that,” she snapped. She’d tried to prepare herself for every possibility, but this had been so unlikely she’d barely considered it. "You could go into hiding."

"They would know. You're a good liar, but you, of all people, can't hide a traitor from them." The bitter laugh that left him was awful. “You came here to kill me if you had to, and now you won’t?”

“It’s a lot harder knowing I’ve made you see sense. You’re still my son.”

“If you don’t do it, I’ll walk out of here and put a blaster in my mouth.”

She stepped back, horrified. 

He took a deep breath, feeling a surreal sense of fate wash over him. He wasn't quite sure how it had come to this, but now that he thought about it, it seemed that their paths had led them to this point with ease. “I want you to do it.”

* * *

Something about it all struck him like a memory of the day he’d left to go train with Luke. It was a goodbye, of a sort. He vaguely wondered if he was even strong enough to come back as a Force ghost. He’d never mastered the techniques Luke had tried to teach him, but maybe the other things he’d learned would count for something? Only the masters ever came back as ghosts. Fear clawed at his chest again and she flinched away from him, feeling it. “I’ll try to…to talk to you.”

She snorted, trying desperately to insert some humor into the situation. “Make peace with yourself before you do, I don’t want to hear it until you figure out how much of a...” the words trailed off as it became blindingly obvious what they were talking about.

“I’m afraid.”

She looked up at him. “Me too.”

He could feel her, heart fluttering with pain and loss and the anticipation of loss, a light in the Force burning and jumping like a candle. They stood there, both of them locked in fear and pain.

Eventually, the shake of her head was tiny, almost imperceptible. “I don’t think…I can’t…”

“You’re not weak like that. I’m not that stupid. I’ll put the mask back on, if that…if it helps.” The weight of her pain was like a boulder dropped on the level sheet that seemed to make up the Force.

“No.” She gritted her teeth at the word. Weak. She’d known what she faced coming here. “I’m not taking that thing back.”

“Then do it.” He drew his saber, ready to threaten her if he had to. “I’ll fight you if I ha…”

His eyes went wide as he felt the pressure close on his throat, surprise catching him as he was yanked from his feet. He dropped his saber and a choked gasp left his mouth. She stared him down, her eyes not leaving his as they filled with tears.

Somehow, he’d thought her the same as his father, ultimately too weak to do anything to help him. He’d thought himself beyond their influence. Even her offer of help had seemed like a promise she was doomed to break, but as his throat closed, his hands scrabbled for purchase for a moment before realizing she’d meant every word.

Memories flashed like lightning. His childhood, time aboard the Falcon, the years spent training under Luke, his teenage years trying to find his place in the Order, trying to find balance within himself to become the man his grandfather had been. He could feel the memories as vibrantly as if they’d been made only hours before, and judging by his mother’s face, she could as well. The bond she’d made by sharing her memories wasn’t a one-way street, and his fear echoed through it.

He could feel his chest starting to burn. Words and feelings echoed through the bond, directed at him. _Please understand. I love you._

_I know._

He felt the way she reeled at his words, and he lashed out at her, suddenly terrified that she’d lose her nerve at the last moment. The force on his throat increased and his vision spotted.

As the burning in his lungs flared up into a fire, her control very nearly wavered. He locked down on the fear and pain and tried to hide them, to push them down somehow. It was hardly a moment before he could feel her pressing on his emotions, trying to soothe him, reassure him, to somehow take away the pain.

And she did. The pain abated, and he could feel her taking it into herself. What replaced it was a calmness he’d never felt before, what he imagined Uncle Luke had spoken about when he spoke of oneness with the Force.

It was nothing but tranquility and love and peace flooding his senses until the world whited out.

* * *

She held him there until she felt the light of his life gutter out, flickering desperately a couple times before going dark.

His body hit the floor, nothing so dramatic as a ton of bricks. It hit the floor like a hundred and eighty pounds of lean, scarred flesh and bone, so much more than the six pounds the doctor had placed in her arms when he’d been born and yet somehow so much less. At birth he’d been six pounds of potential, a well of life and energy. What was left was nothing more than an empty husk.

As it hit her that she’d done what her father had been above doing, her legs gave out under her. Tears didn’t come, couldn’t come. There was nothing left but the hollowness of loss she’d felt time and time again and the echoes of pain he’d left her.

* * *

Half a planet away, Luke dropped to one knee with the sense of loss that blazed across the Force. Snoke, bleeding out slowly, was getting desperate, launching attack after attack at the both of them. Force lightning, every conceivable mental attack he could muster, he flung at them. Rey felt the wave of loss and stumbled, but recovered fast enough to catch the chunk of the cavern Snoke tried to bring down on her master's head. They grappled, fighting for the fate of the galaxy.

It ended with a pile of bloody robes and two force users, broken and battered.

* * *

When Luke and Rey went after Snoke, they left behind a woman with one purpose: to bring her son home.

She brought him home in a body bag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want the delusion of a happy-ish ending, pretend she knocked him out with the force and stuffed him in a body bag for the ride home so no one would try to kill him (and don't read the next chapter).
> 
> But let's just be honest, there's no happy ending with this mess. So have some pain instead.
> 
> Critiques and comments are more than welcome! You can also come yell at me on tumblr, I'm versus-a-blank-paper


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to let this be a single chapter thing but...I couldn't let it rest. Leia demanded some sort of closure, so I gave her a start with another chapter. I'm ending this at two chapters, I swear.

There were things to be taken care of, things to do for the living before she could move on to deal with the dead.

Dead. Even thinking the word left her feeling as though she would be sick. She stifled the feeling and supervised things from a distance, watching as Rey was rushed into the base for medical treatment, Finn at her side. She watched as ships landed, as a pilot came sprinting down the strip, helmet abandoned and straps still hanging from his bright jumpsuit. Of course someone had contacted Poe, most likely Finn. The three of them were nearly inseparable these days.

X-wings landed, people moved from place to place, there were victorious shouts, yells for help, chaos.

Surveying it all, General Leia Organa felt detached, removed from it all. The world had shifted; she could feel it. She could feel Luke, slowly growing more distant, running from the hard things in life again. She could feel Rey’s pain even though she’d passed out from blood loss. She could feel it all.

And at the core of it all, there was a knot of pain, slowly growing more and more tangled as she ignored the twists and turns in the threads that surrounded it.

It needed to be untangled or cut free.

She went back to the _Falcon_.

* * *

She knew, despite the chaos outside, that the stillness would send her to the brink of tears again. She moved through familiar passages, her hand landing on the switch to open the cargo bay and falling still.

A funeral, of sorts. Nothing much, she couldn’t give him anything public. But he deserved to leave the world as Ben Solo, the same way he’d been brought into it.

She made it halfway across the cargo bay before she started to break. Thankful as she was to be alone, she couldn’t do it here, and she couldn’t do it alone. She knew herself well enough for that, to know that she would do something stupid if left alone.

It was apparent she needed someone trustworthy, someone who wouldn’t question her, and someone who could fly.

The ideal choice was obvious.

* * *

She found the trio in the medbay. Rey’s wounds had been treated, but there was only so much that could be done to treat the lightsaber wound. She'd been caught with the flat of a saber, and though it hadn't cut straight through flesh as a direct slash would have, it had burned a massive gash down her arm from her shoulder, which had been sealed with large bacta patches. The gash above her eye had been sealed, but she’d almost certainly have a scar. Other bruises mottled her visible skin, blue-purple swatches and swirls that looked painful.

The two men lying carefully at each of her sides appeared to have fallen asleep talking and guarding over her. Poe hadn’t even bothered to change, simply tied the upper half of his jumpsuit at his waist. Finn’s jacket…or Poe’s jacket, quite frankly she wasn’t sure these days, was draped over Rey's stomach, although the bandaging about her shoulder and chest was left bare. Their hands were clasped on the pillow above her head, and Leia felt a swell of love for the three of them. Each of them was lost in their own way, and each had been found in their relationship with the other two. 

If someone had asked her years before who Poe Dameron, flashy, flighty Poe, would wind up with, she never in her wildest dreams would have guessed a runaway Stormtrooper. Yet somehow, Finn and Poe had connected in a way that nobody else could quite understand. On top of all of that, their relationship with Rey was strange, having accepted her into their duo as one of their own, but without the reassuring touches and reminders that hinted at their more physical relationship outside of the public eye.

And despite the strangeness and Leia not quite being able to wrap her head around it, it worked for Rey like nothing else seemed to. People in the base had made passes at her, men and women alike, and she hadn’t risen to a single one, only laughed them off. Yet when those two teased her and made passes and she flipped it around on them, turning the situation around so fast watchers might get whiplash.

The Force seemed to flow around Rey like a river, constantly moving. She was very infrequently still, but the few times the General could feel real peace in her was with her friends. The three of them, as different as they were, shared a bond unlike anything Leia’d ever seen.

There in the medbay, they finally looked at peace. If the past was any kind of an example, Leia knew it wasn’t over, but they’d won a victory unlike any other. They looked so comfortable, she couldn’t bear to wake them. Rey needed rest, she needed to heal. The boys…men, she corrected, they still looked so young to be fighting this war…seemed to be the only thing to settle Rey, so it was best that they stay where they were.

“Can I help you, General?”

She turned to find one of the doctors speaking to her. “I was looking for Poe Dameron, but I think he ought to sleep.”

The doctor nodded. “The girl’s vitals are finally normalizing. They seemed to have a calming effect on her, so we let them stay. It’s against standard protocol, but…” she shrugged, “it’s hard to treat Force-sensitives sometimes. They seemed to be a solution.”

Leia nodded and the doctor moved on to check on another patient. She stood there watching the three of them sleep the hell of life off for a minute before turning on her heel.

She could find another pilot.

* * *

Poe, half asleep, heard the doctor’s words to the general. He sat up blearily, wary of waking the other two.

Rising, he spoke to the doctor, who pointed him out the door with a hopeless shrug and a quiet, “Something is wrong.”

He left, searching for the woman he’d looked up to for years.

After hunting for what felt like ages, he found her aboard the _Falcon_ , standing in the cargo bay with her arms crossed over her chest, her back to him. The large black cargo bag in front of her was sealed, but she looked down at it, as though contemplating its contents. 

He rapped his knuckles against the steel plating to announce his presence, but she seemed unsurprised. “You were looking for me, ma’am?”

“I…I was.” She didn’t turn to look at him. He could see little but the back of her head, but her usually perfect braid had lost some of its hold, stray ends sticking out here and there. Her shoulders were slumped, very unlike her usual solid stance, and he could tell something was wrong.

“Well then, Dameron reporting for duty, ma’am.”

She turned to him and he took a breath. Her eyes were red, as though she’d been crying, but her cheeks were dry. Bruise-like sleepless circles had begun to form under her eyes. Of course, her eyes were as sharp as ever, but there seemed to be a worn quality about her, like a stone tossed on the surf too long. For the first time, she looked impossibly human, not a living legend, but a world-weary warrior, tired of the fight but unwilling to bend. Everything about her looked painfully vulnerable.

Her boots clicked on the floor as she moved to the wall, sitting down on a crate strapped to the wall.

“Poe.” As long as he’d been the most reliable one in the flight, she’d occasionally broken form and referred to him by his first name. It still sent a thrill of anticipation through him, the same as it had the first time she’d referred to him on a first name basis. She was a living legend, and he was…well, he was a hot-shot pilot, nothing to sneeze at, but a far cry from the war hero she was. Still, she looked terrible. “I think it’s time for me to take a trip.”

Panic gripped him. She was leaving? The same way Luke had, the way he’d simply walked away? Perhaps it wasn’t his place, but he couldn’t remain silent. “The Resistance needs you.”

“And I need the Resistance.” Her gaze returned to the black cargo bag and her voice cracked. “It’s all I have left.”

It took a minute for her words to fully register.

 _Oh._ Very suddenly, things made much more sense. He knew who it was in the containment unit.

Everyone knew the rumors that Ben Solo had turned coat and joined the Order. Those that knew a bit better knew the truth of it, that he’d gone turncoat and become one of the order of knights that served the order. It seemed that Leia had finally brought him home.

He sat down next to her, unsure if she would think the gesture awkward, but unwilling to let her suffer without the offer of a shoulder to lean on. She didn’t drop her head on his shoulder the way Finn often did, but she sat there with him just barely touching shoulder to shoulder. It wasn’t exactly support, just a reminder of his presence, and she seemed to appreciate it.

“Luke is gone again.” She said it matter-of-factly. No one had seen him leave, but she seemed certain.

“And Ben is the only other…was the only other…” he bit his tongue, internally cursing. She winced and her hand gripped his knee at his words. His mind flashed back to the boy he’d known briefly. He’d been younger, but clever and fast enough to keep up with the big kids. What kind of a man had he grown into? A turncoat, yes, but had anything remained of the boy he remembered?

Not likely, he decided. Her hand was steady on his knee, but he had the distinct feeling that if she stood, she would be shaking.

“Ben is gone as well.” Her words wavered, but she pushed on. “I’m the last one standing.”

“I’m sorry ma’am.” She was quiet, but he went on, trying to comfort her somehow. “If it’s any help, you’ve got me. Any way I can help, I’m there.” He took a breath. “You’ve held the entire Resistance together through hell and back. You say it and I’ll see it done.”

He could feel her reaching out with a sensation he’d only ever felt around Rey. It was a gentle brush of minds, but it felt very different from Rey, who felt like liquid gold, bright and alive. The General felt rough with pain and grief, like sandpaper on his mind, followed by a cool feeling of thankfulness and relief.

They sat in the silence for several long minutes. He could tell she was using him to stabilize herself, and there was no job he was more willing to do. Leia Organa was the strongest person he knew, and if she needed support, he would gladly give it. The weight of the grief that was crushing her had to be unbearable. “I find myself in a dangerous state of mind and in need of a pilot.”

“Then I’m your man.”

* * *

It was dark when they landed. Leia unclipped her seatbelt and went back to the bay. Poe finished with the landing procedures, watching as the lights lit the pale dust-like sand, and asked, “Ma’am, is there anything I can help you with?”

She blinked and looked back at him. “Thank you, Poe, but no. I think need to see this done myself.”

* * *

So long as she didn’t think about what she was doing, she could move. It was simple enough to move the case outside, tapping into the force and moving it ahead of herself. Outside, it was dark, but the faint starlight was enough to light the pale dusty surface. She let the bag down and braced herself.

It was impossible to move. She couldn’t. She couldn’t do it.

The stillness and the inner turmoil put her in a strange place, and she forced herself to still. She quickly pushed herself into a state near meditation, calming and breathing again.

Carefully, she took a deep breath, pulling the zipper open, exposing his face to the faint starlight.

The gut-wrenching sob that ripped itself out of her throat was unbidden, unwanted. If she could have been sick, she would have. 

She was thankful for the cooling system built into the bag. In all reality, it was more like a thermal-insulated cooler than most, with options available to keep flesh in an ice-like environment in case of limb loss.

She paused, an unbidden thought swirling to the top of her mind. The bag had been on the _Falcon_ , a small measure of luck but not one entirely unexpected. Over the years she’d let Han do what he pleased. Their communication had consisted of a fair amount of don’t ask, don’t tell, assuming he stayed out of trouble and ran things for the rebellion in dire circumstances. There was a certain possibility this wasn’t the first time the case had been used.

Her train of thought was derailed as she surged forward and forced herself to drag the zipper the rest of the way down, peeling back the sides.

It had chilled and preserved him as much as was possible, and she was grateful for that small blessing. Still, he looked gaunt and sallow and older than she’d ever imagined, more like a wax doll than the empty shell of her son. His skin was purpled where Force-broken blood vessels had pooled in his throat. His skin, pale in life, had grown glossy in death, blood pooling in the hollows of his eyes.

She held it together long enough to move the body from the case and place it in the dust. The tails of his robe tangled about his legs, longer than she remembered but just as skinny. She stood over him, fixing the image in her mind.

Then she set off again for the _Falcon_. There were things to be done.

* * *

Poe was surprised to see the General again so soon. “Ma’am?”

“The fuel cells for the galley, the gas canisters. Where are they?” She looked rather gaunt in the faint lighting, but her eyes were bright and alive.

“I’m not sure, but let’s see what we can find.”

They hunted for ages, coming up short in the galley. Poe eventually found liquid fuel canisters in the bay, reserve canisters that Han or Chewie had stashed away at some point.

Leia picked one up and carried it out. “Can I help you with the other?”

There was a moment of silence, then from outside, “You might as well. I've already got solid fuel. Grab it and come on. I think there’s something you need to see.”

The surface of the planet was dry and dusty, nothing but sand and wastes. Leia carried the fuel toward a blip on the sand, a dark smudge that seemed to flutter. Following her toward it, his eyes eventually made out the shape on the pale sand. As they got close, the smudge resolved into a shape.

The bag had been opened and the body had been moved to the ground, dust swirling about it. She'd put the solid fuel plates underneath, and there was no question that it would burn. In the faint light, Poe could see the face, the strange angles he couldn’t remember. When he approached with the canister, he took a good look at the man in the dust.

Leia looked to him. “You recognize anything?”

What kind of a question was that? Sure, being told that the body in front of him once belonged to Ben Solo, one of the dozens of kids he remembered playing with, was enough to remind him of their few childhood meetings. But without that knowledge? He could have walked past him on the street and not known the difference. “Yeah, he looks older. I’m sorry ma’am.”

The General took a deep breath and turned to him. “That’s not quite what I meant. I know you mean well, but you deserve to know the truth.” She made a motion toward the bag, cast to the side. “Go grab what’s in there.”

The chill he felt reaching into the bag was nothing like what he felt pulling the heavy bundle out. It seemed to be a large, smooth sphere, wrapped in a jacket he recognized as one of hers. He handed it to her, and she unwrapped it, slinging the jacket over her shoulder and looking at the black helm with distaste before holding it out to him.

The very sight of it dragged memories he’d desperately tried to squash to the front of his mind, clear as day. Echoes of pain rattled through his head, clawing at the inside of his skull with blunted talons. He stumbled back and tripped, hitting the ground with a thump. Even through the panic, he was surprised at the violence of his own reaction.

Poe looked at the robes, the wide belt, the cowl that was little more than a crumpled mess about the body’s neck and shoulders and the truth of it all came crashing down. The the horror that slammed into him was like a nightmare come to life.

“I know you don’t want to look, but you should know that it was him. And you should know that he’s dead.” She looked at him, her eyes sympathetic. “It won’t stop the nightmares, but it might bring you some peace. And it’s alright to be angry about all of it.”

“You don’t…you don’t know what he was capable of.”

“Really? I was tortured by Darth Vader.” The General was steadier than she’d been a moment before, turning and squatted down next to him to look him in the eye, catching his unasked question before he could loose it. “Yes, the rumors are true. I was tortured by my own father, and he was...one of the worst men the galaxy ever knew. He found some kind of redemption in the end, but yes, I know perfectly well what the dark is capable of. And I know that you're incredibly brave for fighting it as long as you did.”

Poe looked up at her, the slow realization dawning that though she was a legend and a hero, she was human, and she was hurting as much as he was. He gulped a breath and nodded. She stood, holding out a hand to help him up.

They stood in silence for a time, regarding the body. Leia eventually took a breath and uncrossed her arms. “Will you help me?”

“Of course.”

She nodded her approval and upturned the canister, sloshing it over the body. She didn’t look away, saturating the robes quickly before bracing herself and dumping it on his face and hair.

* * *

He’d seen fathers and mothers say goodbye to their children before, he’d seen them bury them when they’ve had a body to bury. He’d seen reactions ranging from hysterics and passing out to mothers sedated to make it through their children’s funerary rites. He’d seen too much, the war had done enough damage, and he knew in some way it was cold and callous to think of things in such a way. Somehow, it had never occurred to him that his own parents would have a body to bury. If he died, he’d go down with his ship, and the cold expanse of space was merciless in that respect.

All of that being said, he wasn’t sure what to expect from General Leia Organa.

He would never forget the image of her standing over her son, quickly lighting the pyre and backing away as it caught, burning fast and bright. She choked on her breath as she lit it, but her grief was quiet.

She cried as the flames caught and grew, fed by the fuel. The solid fuel plates she’d stacked under him had come from somewhere onboard the _Falcon_ , little more than trading material. After everything caught from the liquid fuel, it burned steady and hot. 

He’d never seen such quiet, all-encompassing grief. He wanted nothing more than to reach out for her, to comfort her in some way, but the fear that it wasn’t his place held him still.

Then again, if it wasn’t him, why was he there? He’d come to help and support her, was there really anything wrong with simply letting her know he was there for her?

The hand he placed on her shoulder wasn’t exactly comforting, only a reminder that she wasn’t alone. She leaned into it, and he found himself wrapping his arms around her on instinct. As his brain caught up with his actions, he said, “Is this alright…?”

She didn’t respond, instead turning and wrapping her arms around him in turn. He’d never realized just how small the General was, her cheek pressed against his chest as she cried. It occurred to him that she was shaking, and he wrapped the hug tighter, if only to say _Lean on me, I won’t let you fall._

This had to be the strongest woman in the galaxy. Her life had been filled with loss after loss, and somehow she hadn’t let it break her, she’d kept fighting. The pain washed out of her in waves, hitting him like the tide slowly coming in. 

It wasn’t hard to think of the General as a mother, she’d always mothered everyone on base, to an extent. It was extremely difficult to think of her as a mother to a specific person. It’d been 15 years, and after the initial news had broken, she’d been impossible to read.

This, though, was heart-wrenching. 

They stood together for awhile, until Leia took a deep breath and let go of him. “I’m going to meditate. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s what I need to do. If you could go back to the ship and wait for me, I’d appreciate it. It may be some time, help yourself to the supplies in the galley.”

He nodded and took his leave, knowing she wanted privacy. It would give him a chance to comm Finn and see how Rey was doing. He grabbed a rations pack and settled into the cockpit of the _Falcon_ again, wondering a little bit at the shape of the sorry thing. Sure, it was a legend, but it really was in rough shape.

* * *

She sat down, letting the endless empty stillness of the desert seep in. The wind had died down to nothing, and the air was cool with the nighttime, and dry. The endless openness of space spread out before her closed eyes, and she opened herself up, letting herself feel the Force in its full strength.

It was a wonder. Even standing in the viewpoint of a ship with the cosmos spread out before her, she only truly felt the impact of all that expanse when she relaxed and opened herself up to the Force. Pinpricks of light and life flickered in and out of existence like stars, each home to their own little universe. There was a part of her that felt like a string, strung too tight. She could feel the snap coming and there was nothing she could do to stop it. 

The feeling of a presence approaching put her on guard.

_“I’m sorry it ended this way.”_

Leia sighed, recognizing the voice. “Still ruining my life from beyond the grave, huh?”

_“You and I both know I don’t have any excuses.”_

“You could have knocked some sense into him.”

Anakin Skywalker sighed. _“I told you, he blocked me out.”_

“I know.”

They sat together in amiable silence, father and daughter. She’d never quite forgiven him the way Luke had, but it almost seemed like he didn’t want forgiveness. Over the years, he’d made it clear that he wanted to fix what he’d done, but that he was afraid of history repeating itself. 

And then the First Order rose, and it did. She hadn’t spoken to him much in those early days, feeling as though his legacy was to blame for Ben’s betrayal. Luke had struggled to forgive him for it. Leia had nearly failed.

Somewhere along the way, though, they met in the middle, with an agreement of passivity. To some extent, he understood her pain. He’d been to blame for their mother’s death, and he still didn’t know if he’d killed her himself. 

The heat of the fire didn’t quite scorch her skin, but it was an ever present reminder of the empty husk she was there to witness turn to ash. The acrid smell of burning hair in the air wasn’t enough to block the reek of burning flesh.

The world shifted abruptly with the snap, when it came. The Force reverberated with it, and she could feel some of the tension in her chest ease. The tears came again, unbidden but not brushed away.

“Ben.” She looked at her father. “I’m expecting you to kick some sense into the boy. He’s out of my reach.”

He nodded, smiling a bit. _“You know, usually people can’t tell the dead what to do, but since the feeling is mutual I’ll see what I can do.”_

There was wrenching fear on the other end of the connection, and her father’s image vanished from the inside of her eyelids.

The snap had been a release, the last strands of reality holding Ben to the body he’d inhabited for thirty-one years releasing as the shell was destroyed. She’d felt the reverberations of him through the Force.

* * *

When the General returned to the ship, Poe could see that much of the weight on her shoulders had been lifted. She was calm and composed, but not so severe as when she was in command.

“Ma’am?”

She smiled, small and wry. “Let’s go home. Your friends need you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I desperately need more Leia-centric fics. So I'm doing what I can to remedy that with this.
> 
> AFTERWARD
> 
> They go home, Finn and Poe eventually get married and Rey (my lovely heart belongs to ace Rey) is a live-in roommate with them when they get their own place. Leia has them to her place for dinner whenever she can, and she makes a motley little family of these lost kids.
> 
> Later, when force ghost Ben finally has the guts to face his mother, he questions her life choices. The conversation goes something like this: “So you’ve adopted this motley crew in my place?”  
> “You abandoned me and your father you little shit. I’m doing what I can for people.”  
> “You’re doing it for yourself as well.”  
> “Yes. I am.” She looks up, staring the fuzzy image of her son in the eye, challenging him to tell her otherwise.  
> He struggles for a moment, then nods. "Good."
> 
> Because Leia deserves to be happy.
> 
> Comments and critiques always welcome! You can also come yell at me on tumblr, I'm versus-a-blank-paper


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